Adams isolated as Washington elite lines up to meet McCartneys

Washington is an unsentimental town. Politicians can sink from A-list to C-list, from celebrity to persona non grata, in a heartbeat, as Gerry Adams is discovering this week.

The Sinn Féin leader has received none of the invitations to the grand St Patrick's Day ceremonies at which he has been guest of honour for the past decade. His name has been scratched off the guest lists at Washington's best addresses and the McCartney sisters have been hurriedly inscribed in its place.

A month and a half after Robert McCartney was murdered outside a Belfast pub, his five sisters and partner, Bridgeen Hagans, will be in the White House tomorrow as special guests of President George Bush for the annual St Patrick's Day reception. They will then be driven to the Capitol for a congressional lunch.

The McCartney family were due to fly in late yesterday and today the Senate's biggest celebrities including Hillary Clinton and Edward Kennedy, will take turns to be seen with them, while other members of Congress are scrambling to set up a meeting.

Mr Adams used to do all that but the official line behind the White House not inviting him is that none of Northern Ireland's parties have been asked this year in light of the current difficulties in the peace process. Unofficially, it is a different story.

"The president wants to register his displeasure," a White House aide said. "The thuggery and gangsterism must end. That's why the McCartney sisters have been invited and Mr Adams has not."

The aide distanced himself from reports that Mr Adams had been consigned to the wilderness permanently by the White House, the fate suffered by Yasser Arafat.

But he did not deny such reports entirely, saying: "I don't know of any such decision."

The White House brush-off was a blow to Mr Adams' prestige, but the snub from Senator Kennedy, who cancelled a meeting with Mr Adams at the eleventh hour, was more painful.

The senator is the embodiment of Irish America and a living link to the Kennedy legend.

Mr Adams will have an audience at the state department today with the US special envoy, Mitchell Reiss, but only after Mr Reiss has heard what the McCartneys have to say.

Tomorrow afternoon he will go to the offices of his closest ally in Congress, Peter King, a New York Republican who has asked a handful of other congressmen to drop by. It was not clear yesterday how many would turn up.

Many are hoping to meet the McCartney sisters, who would have more top-level meetings if Washington's political fixers knew how to get hold of them. This is a city where everyone of note has a public relations consultant or fixer but the McCartney sisters have none. "We would be happy to meet with them, but we don't know who to call. They have no-one here," said one frustrated congressional aide.

One young Irish Washington resident has been given the job of finding a mobile phone for the sisters and fielding calls from the press but he has no background in public relations, did not want his name published and was not sure how he got the job.

"I'd really like to know who gave them my name. I think a friend of theirs met a cousin of mine who said I was over here," he said. "They're making sure they're running this. They're not going to be the dupes of anyone. When it comes to flights and all that, even their husbands are saying: 'You'll have to ask them'."